Cookieclysm
by Accidentally The Whole Fanfic
Summary: Maya Talbot fights fate's cruel assignment of her as a lethal chef. And the winner is... 12 Days of Christmas Prompt, Day 10: Cookies.


**Author's Notes:** Here comes my next, fourth, and final entry in the 12 Days of Christmas Prompt, hosted by Emo Cowboy & therainydaykids! Check it out - last day to enter is the 5th! Day 10: **Cookies**. Poor Maya needs a bone tossed her way. (Well, Kasey tossed her a bone in my AP file, but that's a different kind.)

Cookieclysm

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0:59

0:58

0:57

Tearing her anxious blue eyes away from the microwave timer, Maya Talbot knelt down, clicking the oven light on and peering inside at her creations. She had to actively remind herself not to eagerly press her palms and face against the hot metal, but she was pleased with the slightly-blurred-and-distorted view, nonetheless. He was going to _love_ these!

"Oh, wooooow! They actually kinda _look_ like cookies!" she squealed excitedly, waving a skeptical Eric Chase over from his perch on the far counter. With a grunt, he hopped off and shuffled over, hands crammed in his jeans pockets as he nudged the oven door with a cautious sneaker.

0:36

0:35

0:34

"Yeah, and Phoebe built that perfectly harmless-looking cuckoo clock for Luke," he mumbled as he grabbed a potholder and shooed Maya aside so he could open the oven door a little, remembering the carpenter's birthday the previous June. At the stroke of midnight, a cute and goofy little bird had popped out of the front of the beautifully-crafted device, shrieking out a terrifying avalanche of bloodcurdling screams that had practically sent almost everyone present into cardiac arrest.

On the other hand, it had been Luke's dream come true, even if most of the attendees hadn't spoken to him or Phoebe for weeks following the incident.

Taking a cautious whiff as the scent lured him back into the present, Chase frowned, letting the oven door click shut again - the cookies smelled absolutely fine. For Maya, "fine" was a miracle that bordered on divine intervention, or something more than that. As for everyone else, well... "fine" was virtually a given.

"Mmmmm! I'd forgotten how good they smell when they're not burnt," Maya mumbled, licking her lips happily and rubbing her hands together.

0:15

0:14

0:13

Blue eyes squeezed shut happily, a little squeal bubbled out of the orange-haired girl's lips as she bounced in place and chanted the final countdown along with the timer. It was like New Year's, to her. Clean slate. A new beginning. Success.

0:03

0:02

0:01

The microwave beeped once as Chase cut off the timer and turned off the oven with practiced precision. Click off the light and swing the door open, grab another potholder while pulling the occupied rack out, push the rack back in while putting the cookie sheet on the stovetop to cool off, nudge the oven door closed with his knee while hanging the potholders back up on their hooks. Maya watched, fascinated, at the almost fluid nature of it - like a strange dance tailored just for him. Even Selena would be impressed.

Shaking her head rapidly to suddenly rid her mind of the image of a made-up, blinged-out Chase in sheer harem pants and a tiny little midriff-baring top, Maya bounced over to the oven, leaning over the cookie sheet and taking another deep whiff, while Chase stepped aside and scowled.

"Okay, okay! Don't snot all over them... geez... alright, what the hell are you doing now?" he snapped flatly, as Maya grabbed a nearby spatula and slid one of the chocolate chip cookies off of the sheet, blowing on it enthusiastically.

Maya tittered and rolled her eyes, waving off his sour attitude. "Getting ready to chow down, _duh!_ These are the best-smelling things I've eeeee~ver made! They've _gotta_ be good!"

Biting back the urge to make a snitty remark about how a lack of patience wasn't exactly a stellar quality in an aspiring chef, Chase sighed and slipped his own cookie - the smallest one, whereas Maya had chosen the largest - off of the sheet and onto a napkin, mimicking Maya's blowing to cool it off.

His brow furrowed - it _did_ smell good... really good. Catching the pair of expectant blue eyes watching him, he hunched his shoulders defensively, voice coming out in a slight whine: "...You're seriously creeping me out..."

"Don't caaaaare~" Maya chirped, holding up her own cookie, as if in a toast. "C'mon, let's do this together, 'kay? That way, you can't discourage me by trying yours first and saying it sucks!"

Well, there went _that_ plan.

Nodding reluctantly, Chase gulped, lightly bopping his cookie against hers, before the pair enacted a quiet count to three, chomping down in tandem.

Right away, Maya's delighted groans - which bordered on unintentionally indecent, to Chase's ears - made his stomach drop and his appetite wither, even as he chewed and chewed, the terrible truth rolling over his own tastebuds.

"Oh. My. GAWWWWWWWD! These are soooooo _on!_ " Maya squealed loudly, jumping about and clapping happily, heedless of the small crumbs and smudges of chocolate around her full lips. "I DID IT, CHASIE!"

Going wan, hands starting to shake, Chase nodded in weak agreement. She'd done it. She _had_ done it.

Oh, Sephia, had she _done_ it.

Catching sight of Chase's anxious, crestfallen reaction, Maya's breath hitched. "Ch... Chase...?" she squeaked quietly, sounding like her world was about to fall apart. "...They're... they're good, right? I'm not... imagining it...?"

Chase shook his head feebly, swallowing hard. "They're... amazing," he mumbled bleakly, his thousand-yard stare boring straight through Maya. "I... this... this can't be happening..."

And that sealed it.

Sucking in a deep breath, Maya straightened her posture, squared her shoulders, and backhanded Chase like a fed-up pimp smacking a mouthy prostitute, the peach-haired chef's head snapping back in time with the loud _crack!_

" _UP YOURS, CHASE!"_

Blinking and trying to regain his bearings, Chase jogged after Maya as she stormed out of the kitchen, grabbing her hand and ignoring the extremely painful stinging of his cheek - her pimp hand was surprisingly strong. "Maya, wait, no-!"

"LEMME GOOOOO!" Wrenching her hand away, the livid waitress rounded on him so quickly that Chase wasn't entirely sure her head hadn't spun all the way around first. "You know, _Eric_ , I finally do this right, after years and years and years and like, for _ever_ , and - and you can't even be happy for me! You even admitted they were good! You're just a... a nasty little _troll!"_

Holding his hands up defensively, Chase shook his head, ignoring the venomous use of his hated first name. "Hey, wait, that's not what this is a-"

"Well, you can just... you can just kiss it!" Maya interrupted, slapping his hands down, eyes blazing furiously. "You know what, though?! Those were for Kasey, anyway, and I know _he'll_ appreciate them!"

The urgent matter at hand briefly forgotten, Chase frowned and scratched his head, his other hand resting on his hip. "What? Manatos? He doesn't even like sweets, and I dunno how you even missed the memo on this, but he's ga-"

His assessment of Kasey was cut off as the whole inn suddenly quaked violently, an earsplitting roar bringing the pair to their knees. Maya screamed as a beam snapped from the stress and crashed right behind her, and the key cubbies behind the inn's counter were emptied out with a series of drowned-out jangles.

Breathing shallow, Chase stumbled to his feet, helping a terrified Maya up as they clung to the nearby counters for support. _"DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'VE_ _ **DONE?!** "_ he screamed over the noise, grabbing Maya's shoulders and - however pointless it was in the midst of the massive quakes - shaking her roughly, as though she were a magic 8-ball. _Outlook not good_.

" _Chase, let go! This isn't my fault, I-!"_

Maya's protest, and the roof of the inn, were quickly ripped away to the soundtrack of twin shrieks. The overcast January sky had been replaced with a blood-red vortex of thick, sulfurous clouds of smoke, from which rained massive fireballs that set the sleepy little seaside town ablaze. Horrified screams and semiautomatic gunfire could now be heard clearly beyond the walls of the inn. Her family - her family was taking lunch with the Hamiltons...

"THIS IS ABSOLUTELY YOUR FAULT!" Chase howled, falling flat on his ass and scrabbling away from Maya as quickly as he could. The fact that he'd helped, that he'd sat by and simply watched as she'd doomed them all, was nothing to him at this point. "You fought, _fate_ , Maya! You fought _them!"_ He stabbed an accusing finger skyward as Maya looked between the two, distress and confusion wracking her freckled face. "This would never have happened if you'd just-"

"N-NO! No, I just... I just baked cookies, I promise! Who are you even talking about, Chase?! I-"

One of the fireballs slammed into the far corner of the inn, taking Chase away with it as retribution for his sins, and sending Maya to her knees with an anguished sob. Unnoticed by her, Calvin Hawke tried to clamber his way inside to safety, over the ruined walls - only for a massive, slimy tentacle to erupt from the sea, wrapping around him and yanking him cruelly beneath the surface before he could shout out his protests. Pascal Travers and Selena Kapule, trying to brave the tempestuous ocean on a rickety little shanty boat, were quickly sucked into a massive whirlpool.

Eyes widening in horror as realization struck her, Maya clumsily scrabbled for the remains of the kitchen as the gates of Hell ripped open all around her, lunging at the wonderful, delicious, damnable cookies scattered all over the floor. Yes, that was it! The dirty, dirty, wet floor, sooooo, so dirty - that was a start!

A good distance away, Mt. Garmon erupted with a deafening _kaboom_ , quickly razing the mining district to the ground beneath a hail of lava and thick plumes of ash; the Clarinet District was cracked open on a fault line that hadn't been there before, sending Dobro Ridge plummeting into a hellish, quickly-flooding chasm, even as its occupants tried vainly to make a break for it. A new volcano punched up suddenly from far beneath Flute Fields, completely obliterating it even before the next series of eruptions began.

Still, Maya worked. She skidded on the wet linoleum over to the still-full sink with the cookies, dunking them in the sudsy water to make them soggier, and rubbing various things she'd grabbed desperately from the cabinets - garlic powder, steak seasoning, oven cleaner, a dust bunny, a dead rat - all over them.

As she looked down at the soft, hairy rat corpse in her hands, she uttered a scream more unholy than the chaos outside and flung it against the far wall like she was pitching for the World Series.

As the front half of Harmonica Town cracked away into the ocean, the clock tower on the town hall long-since tipped over to crush Hamilton's house, Maya crammed the ruined cookies into her mouth - except for the one that had been seasoned with dead rat - and chewed hurriedly, before-

"BLECH!"

Spitting out the cookies and gagging, Maya rushed for the fridge - power knocked out in all the ruckus, but not too long to spoil anything within - and snatched up a carton of milk, chugging like there was no tomorrow, hoping to rid the horrible taste from her mouth. If only she knew where her father's scotch was. Or all the scotch in the world. That sounded great.

Still, her breathing ragged and noisy, Maya noted that the chaos all around Castanet had seemed to quell with the ruination of her first, and only, culinary success. Not that the calm mattered anymore - most of the inn had been obliterated by this point, allowing her a peek into the world outside... burning wreckage, thick blankets of smoke and ash and embers, and the kitchen of the Ocarina Inn being the last structure truly standing for miles. Clarinet had collapsed into the sea and dragged Dobro Ridge with it, Flute Fields and Garmon Mines were ablaze and practically _melted_ , and from what she could tell, Celesta Church had been stomped by a giant's foot or something - she didn't really give a shit at this point. Everyone else was dead.

Everyone else was _dead!_ Including that stupid rat! And her family, too, sure. Her fists clenched by her sides, knuckles going white at the thought. She didn't dare look towards the mayor's house, half-submerged and pulverized beneath the clock tower.

All because she...

She'd...

"Well, you know what?!" she suddenly shouted at the sky, her squeaky voice echoing across the wasteland that was Castanet. "UP YOURS, TOO, YOU... YEAH, _YOU!_ " Finger jabbing skyward much like Chase's had moments before karma made him its blazing bitch, Maya addressed the apocalypse directly. "BECAUSE I _WON!_ That's right, you... you JERKAZOID!" A feral grin stretched her full lips, and she clapped manically. "YOU CAN SUCK IT~ AND YA KNOW WHY, BUSTER?! BECAUSE I... I? I! _BAAAAAAAKED!"_

With this shrieked declaration, a shrill eruption of giggles blasted from her throat, sounding like a massive colony of bats screeching overhead.

And that was when she spotted it, out of the corner of her eye...

...She'd missed one.

Perfect.

It was still perfect.

With another giggle that would have creeped out even the eldritch abominations that had laid waste to her beloved home, Maya - mind well and truly ground into a fine, salty powder at this point - staggered over to the stove, grabbing a cookie that had become lodged in the spiral of a burner cover, sucking in a deep breath.

She'd already defied fate once. This is what she had to show for it.

Time to finish the job.

Tenderly dislodging the beautiful treat, Maya looked to the skies, watching the clouds start to swirl once more, beginning to glow red with hellish fire. Her voice was sharp and cold as she addressed the end of times:

"Kiss."

Rumbling...

"My."

Tsunamis...

"Cookies."

And, as her teeth crunched through the wonderful confection, she felt nothing but satisfaction, even while the ruins of Castanet were promptly enveloped in a white-hot mushroom cloud that left nothing behind but the calming sea.

Absolutely delicious.

* * *

 **Author's Notes Redux:** Kudos to the person on the Ranch Story Wiki who wrote AP Maya's bio: "It is almost as if fate doesn't want Maya to cook." There was such an ominous, _Final Destination_ feel about that line that this is what happened when I thought too hard about it. This isn't Suikoden, Maya! At least she went out (thus wiping Castanet off the map in a nuclear blaze) on her own terms! Fun fact: This is my fourth entry for the prompt series, and in Japan, the number "four" is associated with death! So I thought it was only fitting to _**KILL EVERYONE**_ for my first fanfic of 2016. Which is divisible by 4. Full circle, yeah?

also lololol spoilers for "Stumbling Out of the Shadows." Sorry, Kasey.

Feel free to leave a review, if you'd like. Or if someone could build me a cuckoo clock that emits bloodcurdling screams on the hour, that'd be even better. Thanks to Emo Cowboy & therainydaykids for hosting this prompt! YOU LET THIS HAPPEN. I may have only done 1/3 of the themes, but it was fun!


End file.
